


Cesspool Sisters

by PeroxidePirate



Category: Provost's Dog - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-29
Updated: 2010-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxidePirate/pseuds/PeroxidePirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tansy reflects on her friendship with Beka through the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cesspool Sisters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lisafer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisafer/gifts).



I.

The new family had been there for three months. They lived in two rooms below the floor occupied by Tansy's family: three gixies younger than Tansy; lad just learning to walk; mot, big with child again; cove, gone more often than there.

“Go an' tell Mistress Cooper we're gettin' a pig,” Tansy's ma told her. “Ask if she wants to buy a share.”

That's how Tansy ended up outside the door when the cove – not Master Cooper, as it turned out; there was no Master Cooper anymore – kicked the gixies out of the room. “I came to see my son,” he bellowed, loud enough for Tansy to catch every nuance without straining her ears. “I brought this food for my son. Not for these doxie bastards.”

“Those 're my daughters you're talkin' about,” Mistress Cooper snapped. “Good lasses, all of 'em, so watch your mouth.” But all the same, the door opened, and three gixies of different sizes tumbled into the hallway. “Beka, watch your sisters,” Mistress Cooper called after them, as she shut the door.

Tansy really looked at her neighbors for the first time. Her gaze fixed on the tallest one, who must be Beka: she was stick-thin, like all the kids living on Mutt Piddle Lane, with scraggly hair of indeterminate color. What Tansy noticed was her eyes: ghost eyes, pale like a blue shirt that had been washed too many times.

Beka stared back, not saying anything, just looking at Tansy with her mouth drawn into a tight line and her eyes unnaturally wide. Her sisters stood behind her, staring too, and waiting for Beka to do something.

“Are you really doxies?” Tansy asked, at last.

Beka's eyes went from scared to outraged. “'Course not! That's just what Mama's cove says.” She stuck her chin out, just about daring Tansy to argue.

“Beka?” asked one of the little girls, tugging her sister's sleeve. “What's a doxie?”

Beka and Tansy looked at each other and didn't answer.

“Come on,” Tansy said, grabbing Beka's hand. “Let's go to th' fountain.”

II.

Beka was at her back, sharp eyes peeled, while the baker engaged with a customer on the other side of the stall. Tansy watched the day market, smiling politely, with her hands behind her back – so no one saw when she reached into a basket of turnovers. If she was careful, she could hold four at a time: two for her, two for Beka. Of course, Beka would give her share to her sisters, so Tansy would give one of hers to Beka. Then Beka would owe Tansy a turnover, and that's why Beka would have to do all this again.

They'd been doing it for years now. They were good at it. But every so often...

“Run!” Beka said, just loud enough for Tansy to hear. They took off, weaving between vendors and shoppers, swift and smart as only Lower City kids can be.

“This way!” Tansy shouted, heading for an alley.

“Bugnob!” Beka grabbed Tansy's arm. “That way's a dead end, remember? This way!” She pointed down a different, but almost identical, alley.

And that's why Tansy needed Beka. As she ran, the movement of hot air felt almost cool on her face. Tansy laughed, letting Beka pull her along until they came out of the tiny space between buildings. Now they were in a quiet street – nicer than Mutt Piddle Lane, a little, but that ain't hard. Most folk, including shopkeepers and dogs, didn't realize the alley led all the way to the market. They were clear.

Breathing hard, they stopped next to a fountain. Tansy looked at her hands. When they had to run, she could never keep track of what she dropped and what she held onto. Just two turnovers, slightly crushed and leaking filling onto the cobblestones: one meat and gravy; one some kind of sweet and sticky. She broke them both in half. “Here.”

Beka pulled a mud-stained handkerchief out of her pocket. “I'm not hungry anymore,” she lied. “I'll save these for later...”

“You can't,” Tansy interrupted. “Crust is broken. Y'don't want dirt inside.”

Beka swallowed hard, eyes fixed on the food.

“Come on. You think Diona and Lorine don't have their own racket, by now? Bet they steal more 'n we do.”

With a shaky laugh, Beka tore into the food.

III.

“Annie's one of th' kitchen maids at Provost's House,” Beka explained, as she unwrapped the package. “She can't wear this, since her babe was born. Gave it to me, but...” She held up the dress, gray embroidered in pink. It was long and sweeping, almost like a lady's, with a low, pink-ruffled neckline. “I ain't got the peaches for it.”

“Not yet, maybe,” Tansy said, stifling a giggle. She was a mot by now – as good as, anyway – but it was hard to think of Beka as anything other than a skinny, mud-spattered gixie.

“No point in keeping it, then. I want you to have it.”

“I don't need hand-outs,” Tansy snapped. “Stuff your charity.”

Beka blinked, face registering hurt. “I thought you'd like it. Otherwise I wouldn't'a taken it at all.”

The dress was awfully pretty. And it would look much better on Tansy.

“You really don't want it?”

Beka shook her head. “If I try to keep it til it fits me, Diona'll just snitch it anyway.”

That was true: they'd long since lost track of all that Beka's sisters – especially Diona – had nabbed from her. “Well...”

“I got this.” Beka gestured to her own dress, dark blue with narrow, cream-colored trim at the waist and the round neck. “It's good enough for the festival. What more do I need? 'Sides, I owe you for 'bout two hundred turnovers.”

Tansy laughed, and held out her hand. “All right. But you have to let me do your face.” She nodded to the pots of facepaint on the window ledge.

Beka gulped, eyes going wide, but she didn't refuse. “Let's get ready, then.”

IV.

“Does it feel any different?” Beka asked.

Tansy bit her lip. “It does. 'M not sure why, but... yes.” Herun was on the other side of the courtyard, surrounded by family and friends. Tansy had taken a moment to greet her own friends – a smaller crowd, her family not being as well-connected as the Lofts.

“I'm happy for you,” Beka said. “He's a good man, Tansy. He'll be good to you.”

“We've you to thank for it. You, and that gray dress you give me, two years gone.”

Beka shook her head. “It wasn't the dress.”

“It was the dress, the very first time he talked to me.” Tansy looked Beka over – she was still thin, but she'd filled out some. “And you can have it back. It's in my trunk, upstairs. And you should be wearing it right now.” She started toward the Lofts house.

“Tansy, don't!” Beka followed, grasping Tansy by the elbow. “What would I do with a nice dress like that?”

“Meet a nice cove, mayhap.” She nodded toward the crowd around her husband. “This very day, if you're lucky.”

Beka's pale eyes went distant, as though half her mind was somewhere else. “And what would I do with a nice cove?”

Tansy raised an eyebrow. “Beka Cooper, you know what to do with a cove.”

“Not a nice one. The marrying, settling down, sort? No.”

“You're young, yet,” Tansy reassured her. “You'll meet someone.”

“Tansy-” Beka gulped. “Tansy Lofts, I don't want that.”

Tansy blinked. “You don't?”

“I haven't told anyone,” Beka said, dropping her voice, “but I'm gonna be a Dog, just like I planned. I'm really doin' it, Tans. I start training next week.”

Tansy and Beka looked at each other, each trying to understand. Then Tansy shook her head, giving up. “Good on you, Cooper,” she said. “But take the dress, just in case.”

V.

“I didn't know where else to go,” Beka said, voice softer than Tansy had ever heard it – softer, even, than when Mistress Cooper died. “I don't know what to do. My whole life is about to change.”

“It is,” Tansy agreed, seriously. Most of her mind on the conversation, her eyes nonetheless tracked her children, automatically: they were in the opposite corner of the room, playing with the carved wooden animals Annis had got them as a Midwinter gift. The second-floor great room was dim, the heavy iron fireplace screen and the wooden window shutters conspiring to block out half the light. Tansy was accustomed to it, but Beka wasn't – yet.

“And I'm so alone,” Beka whispered.

“The father..?”

Beka's reply was quick and sharp. “Nevermind him.”

“You're gonna raise this babe yourself, then?” Tansy asked, gently.

Beka lifted her chin, eyes going stormy and distant like they did when she was being stubborn. “I am.” Then she crumpled into herself, putting her hands over her face. “I don't have any choice.”

Tansy looked across the room again. What would it be like if she didn't have Herun and Annis; if it was just her and the children? She remembered back so many years, meeting Mistress Cooper and the gaggle of skinny kids on Mutt Piddle Lane.

“Hush, now,” she said, wrapping her arms around her friend. “There's always a choice.”

Beka went stiff in Tansy's hold. “I'm keeping the babe,” she said, so quickly that Tansy knew someone had already tried to talk her out of it.

“Of course you are.” Tansy petted her hair, reassuring. “But you can choose how to bring it up. You're not alone, silly gixie. You've got me. You've got all of us.”

Beka shook her head, eyes firmly closed. She was crying, Tansy realized. “Your family...”

Tansy just held her tighter. “You saved my husband's life, and likely the life of my oldest living child. If that doesn't make you family, I don't know what does. So pull yourself together and quit this pigscummer about being alone in the world. You know it isn't so.”

Little Tiana came up to the two women, then, and tugged on Beka's hand. “Aunt Beka, why are you sad?”

Beka drew in one huge, heaving breath, and rubbed her eyes with the palm of her free hand. “I'm not sad,” she said, lifting Tansy's daughter onto her lap. “I'm only a tiny bit scared.”

“Why?”

“Because, little one, by midsummer, you are going to have a new baby cousin. And I've never had a baby before.”

“But,” Tansy added, “just as soon as your Grandma Annis comes home to help us sort it out, your Aunt Beka is going to live with us.”

Tiana squealed in delight, wrapping her arms around Beka's neck. Over her head, Beka met Tansy's eyes with a smile.


End file.
